


Fixate

by orphan_account



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Death, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Pre-Canon, Suffering, War, drabble?, ennui, i dunno man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 16:05:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8452825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The evening before a battle, Pearl makes an unnerving discovery.





	

After hundreds of years, a day is a trifling thing. A day may as well be a minute. A second. For your time is composed of an unending amount of these seconds, filled with the harsh sounds of your spear on others’ bodies, the screams and battle cries of you and your comrades, and on occasion a lull as your next point of defense is locked on and organized. And you’d say you’ve been a pillar through all of it, unrelenting, stoic and courageous, with rarely a lapse in perfect methodism. And as each second passes, you come more and more into your own, and each fight is like a revelation. The blur of the ages serves as a reminder that you are efficient, that you are serving your true purpose. To be at her side. To serve under Rose Quartz.

So why are you breaking now?

The night sky stretches out, boundless, an austere blanket over the silent field. Moon hanging low, you observe your long, pale fingers in the silvery light. They tremble, ever so slightly, likely only decipherable to you. You turn them, now with palms up, and the back again, over and over, a slow cycle of silent fascination and vague horror. Back when the war was young, you think. Before it turned into a struggle just to fend them off from the planet, the monotony of decades that you’ve been dwelling in. When it was all still passionate, you think, that’s when you last felt this way. When you were young, when you were still naïve. Before you’d lost so many.

You’re on your knees, as if revering what lies on the ground before you. Soft curves of grey, a structured shape on the soft grass. Quite old, you figure, as the frame no longer has any flesh on it. Cervid in nature. Prior to stumbling upon this skeleton, you’d been walking the location of the next confrontation, a usually peaceful and settling tradition that you do at every site. But it caught your eye, and now you find yourself cowed by this irrelevant detail. A detail that should’ve been skipped, as with so many similar ones.

_When?_

It’s small. Incredibly delicate, with some bones being barely thicker than those shaking fingers of yours. From what you know of Earth creatures, an animal of this breed, of this size, must’ve been a mere few months of age. _Fawn,_ the human word. That was it. A fawn.

_When was it?_

Which months, which two or three obscure and faded months of this dreadful war did this little creature pass from existence? Which of those months that in this moment, you feel that you have taken for such granted? What feels like a blink of your eye was the fawn’s entire life, vibrant and colorful and emotional. Did it die to a predator? Of starvation? Was its demise brought about by a Gem, perhaps? All of these questions shouldn’t mean a thing to you, and yet you feel anger at the thought of the animal’s end being executed by the careless movements of some fusion soldier.

_Its death was insignificant. A non-factor._

And yet...

You _do_ take all your years for granted. Even when fighting for survival, that almost instinctual struggle that rules your entire life. And that was it, that was what you felt at the start. You still feared being shattered. The thought of passing simply doesn’t register in your mind any longer.

Slowly, you reach out towards the remains, realizing once again how foreign to you the deaths of Earth creatures are. To leave behind a structure, a shell, seems strange, almost unnecessary. The eyesockets gape hollowly above the macabre grin, and you almost reconsider touching the thing. But you do, and as you run your fingers across the brittle surface, you’re surprised to find tears on your cheeks. You breathe in, short and harsh, wiping with violence at the droplets. This doesn’t make any sense to you. Why is this happening?

“Pearl?”

Freezing briefly, you then shut your eyes, attempting to collect yourself. “Just a second,” you say, hardly an instant before you feel a hand on your back. The warmth of her presence fills the air, and in the midst of your internal struggle to pick up the pieces, you find too much comfort in her. You lose it all, and as you turn you’re falling against her, sobs tearing your body apart. Her embrace envelops you, wraps you in her scent and the softness of her body, filling you with desperate love and devotion all at once. Arms around her neck, face against her chest, the rest of you half on her lap, you weep until you’re entirely drained.

After a time, you begin to recover. “Rose, I’m so tired of this,” you confess quietly, chin on her shoulder so that your vision is now obliterate by her mass of pink curls.

“Oh, Pearl…” You can feel as her lips brush ever so lightly against your hair, and her voice is mixed with a long sigh, filled with such wistfulness that you can feel it in your very core. “I hope you know that I am, too.”


End file.
